Open Thread – Mon 20 Jan 2025


An Interior in Venice, John Singer Sargent, 1899

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Steve trickler
Steve trickler
January 20, 2025 12:11 am

Wow, that speech was full on. He did not hold back.

Top bloke.

—–

Via Rabbi Pinchas Taylor:

Yosef Hadad singlehandedly educates an entire Audience of pro Palestinians at Oxford Union.

WATCH Israeli-Arab DESTROYS Entire Crowd of Jew Haters at Oxford Union

Last edited 6 hours ago by Steve Trickler
KevinM
KevinM
January 20, 2025 12:19 am

Indolent
January 19, 2025 9:04 am

@WallStreetApes

The Supreme Court upholds the TikTok Ban

Many members of Congress bought META stock as they were voting to ban TikTok, they’re getting rich while eliminating their donors competition.

How on earth can the American people tolerate this?

Are they stupid or don’t care?
This is criminal.

KevinM
KevinM
January 20, 2025 12:21 am

Brazilian mounted police.
Not a joke.

473727181_584201327719171_5505280944786611883_n
mizaris
mizaris
January 20, 2025 12:21 am

Good morning all.

KevinM
KevinM
January 20, 2025 12:27 am

Why the six shooters were only loaded with five rounds.

——————–
An accident was waiting to happen. This is why up to this day it is recommended to load 5 rounds only and to leave one chamber empty. Then the empty chamber can be turned to be right in front of the hammer. In this way the revolver will never shoot by accident.

six
Arky
January 20, 2025 1:01 am
Reply to  KevinM

In this way the revolver will never shoot by accident.

Revolvers don’t shoot by accident.
They’re shot by accident.
Or more precisely, shot by negligence.
But let those who haven’t negligently shot someone cast the first stone, say I.

Salvatore - Iron Publican
January 20, 2025 3:31 am
Reply to  KevinM

I wore a revolver for some years. Never did I consider an accidental discharge was a possibility.
In fact, I don’t see how an accidental discharge is possible. There’d have to be nothing between the hammer & the firing pin (there is)

I never used a single-action revolver, for reasons.

KevinM
KevinM
January 20, 2025 1:05 am

Bush poems.
Not particularly fond of poems, specially those that rhyme.
But here it goes.

Will Ogilvie was a Scot who spent only twelve years in Australia, yet he wrote some of our most inspiring bush poems. One favourite, for generations of ringers, cattle duffers and drovers is, “The Man Who Steadies the Lead.”

——————–

He was born in the light of red oaths and nursed by the drought and the flood,
And swaddled in sweat lined saddle-cloths and christened in spur drawn blood;
He never was burdened with learning, and many would think him a fool,
But he’s mastered a method of turning that never was taught in a school.

His manners are rugged and vulgar, but he’s nuggets of gold in our need,
And a lightning flash in the mulga is the Man who Steadies the Lead!
When the stockwhips are ringing behind him and brumbies are racing abreast,

It’s fifty-to-one you will find him a furlong or two from the rest
With the coils of his whip hanging idle, his eyes on the mob at his side,
And the daintiest touch on the bridle- for this is the man that can ride!
And the stallions that break for the mallee will find he has courage and speed,

For he rides the best horse in the valley- this stockman who steadies the lead.
When they’re fetching in stores to the station through tangles of broken belar,

And the road is a rough calculation that’s based on the blaze of a star;
When they’re quickening through sand-ridge and hollow and rowels are spattered with red,

And sometimes you’ve only to follow the sound of the hoof-beat ahead;
Then we know that he’s holding them nor’ward- we trust in the man and his steed,
As we hear the old brown crashing forward and his rider’s Wo-up to the lead.

And again in a journey that’s longer, in a different phase of the game,
Dropping down the long trail to Wodonga with a thousand or so of the same;
When the blue grass is over the rollers, and each one contentedly rides,
And even the worst of the crawlers are stuffing green grass in their hides;

He is ready to spread them or ring them or steady them back on the feed,
And he knows when to stop them or string them, t
his stockman who rides in the lead.
But when from the bend of the river the cattle break camp in the night-
O, then is the season, if ever, we value his service aright!
For we know that if some should be tardy, and some should be left in the race,

Yet the spurs will be red on Coolgardie as someone swings out of his place.
The mulga-boughs-hark to them breaking in front of the maddened stampede!

A horse and rider are taking their time-honoured place in the lead.
As an honest and impartial recorder I’d fain have you all recollect
There are other brave men on the Border entitled to every respect;
There’s the man who thinks bucking a tame thing and rides them with lighted cigars;

And the man who will drive any blame thing that ever was hooked to the bars……….
Their pluck and their prowess are granted, but, all said and done, we’re agreed

That the king of ‘em all when he’s wanted is the Man who Steadies the Lead!

(Photo of Will Ogilvie taken in 1937, courtesy National Library.)

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Salvatore - Iron Publican
January 20, 2025 3:21 am
Reply to  KevinM

Put to music by arguably our best balladeer. This ballad was the title of the album, released in 1980.

Arky
January 20, 2025 1:38 am

Jesus Curses a Fig Tree

18 Early in the morning, as Jesus was on his way back to the city, he was hungry. 19 Seeing a fig tree by the road, he went up to it but found nothing on it except leaves. Then he said to it, “May you never bear fruit again!” Immediately the tree withered.

I’m with Jesus.
Last time I was in Taiwan I had a salad with raw figs.
Found out instantaneously that I’m allergic to raw figs, throat swole up and trip to hospital ensued.
Lord, wither all of the fig trees, say I.

Last edited 5 hours ago by Arky
Nelson_Kidd-Players
Nelson_Kidd-Players
January 20, 2025 6:18 am
Reply to  Arky

Can’t eat raw figs. Have always loved fig jam. Yum!

KevinM
KevinM
January 20, 2025 1:40 am

The opposite of Bobby Fisher.
————-

In 1920, 8 year old Samuel Herman Reshevsky played against chess masters, he lost every game.
Grown up to be a good chess player but never a champion.

sam
KevinM
KevinM
January 20, 2025 1:49 am

My admiration for women.
How did they endure this type clothing?

Nix that, dressing like a letterbox is all in vogue.

sa
Nelson_Kidd-Players
Nelson_Kidd-Players
January 20, 2025 6:21 am
Reply to  KevinM

So much effort when clothing wasn’t cheap. In an age of mechanisation and cheap (slave?) overseas labour, a walk in the park now likely has selected leggings and a tee!

Maman
Maman
January 20, 2025 6:30 am
Reply to  KevinM

Ah, 🙂 but all is not what it seems!

“How the Victorians Faked Tiny Waists – One does not simply have a 16″ waist”. (Bernadette Banner, YouTube)

A combination of padding busts and hips to create the illusion of a tiny waist and also, can you believe it 🙂 19th century “photoshop”!

And, off on a tangent, there is an Australian/Victorian (Latrobe Uni ??) PhD researcher who has studied facial expressions in old photos and explains why, in most early staged photos people appear so dour – the length of time the process took, social convention not to smile, teeth were in such bad condition.

Think twice about every photo presented to you.

Tom
Tom
January 20, 2025 4:00 am
Tom
Tom
January 20, 2025 4:01 am
Tom
Tom
January 20, 2025 4:02 am
Tom
Tom
January 20, 2025 4:03 am
Nelson_Kidd-Players
Nelson_Kidd-Players
January 20, 2025 6:25 am
Reply to  Tom

Four more years of TDS from today, or shall Ramirez come around?

GreyRanga
GreyRanga
January 20, 2025 6:31 am

I was going to say “is the Pope Catholic”. That is no longer a certainty.

Tom
Tom
January 20, 2025 4:04 am
Tom
Tom
January 20, 2025 4:05 am
Tom
Tom
January 20, 2025 4:06 am
Tom
Tom
January 20, 2025 4:07 am
Tom
Tom
January 20, 2025 4:08 am
calli
calli
January 20, 2025 6:26 am

Romi Gonen, Doron Steinbrecher and Emily Damari have been returned to their families.

Beertruk
January 20, 2025 6:39 am
Reply to  calli

Sadly Calli I think we will be revisiting this again in another 10-15 years.

GreyRanga
GreyRanga
January 20, 2025 6:41 am
Reply to  calli

Why do I have a tear in my eye? This is only the beginning for them. The fact they survived is a credit to them that I don’t know if any of us could have endured. Israel is going to have to cut off any interaction with Gaza. No border, water or electricity. You’re on your own. Any rockets, we move the border 100 metres for each one. In a week no more Gaza. The scum muzzies just can’t help themselves.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
January 20, 2025 6:45 am
Reply to  calli

Here’s the Sky News report:

Three female hostages released in first phase of Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal after brief delay from ‘technical field reasons’ (20 Jan)

Romi Gonen, 24, Emily Damari, 28, and Doron Steinbrecher, 31, were handed over to Israeli troops on Monday before 3am after being kidnapped by terrorists 471 days ago.

Israel will then free around 90 Palestinian prisoners as part of the deal in coming hours.

There was initially a delay to the ceasefire after Hamas failed to hand over the names of the first hostages it would release, blaming it on “technical field reasons”.

The names were handed over a few hours later.

Sinwar does the same as his brother and only communicates by written messages.

Beertruk
January 20, 2025 6:32 am

Bolta in today’s Tele:

GREAT DAY FOR THE FREE, BAD DAY FOR ALBANESE

ANDREW BOLT
20 Jan 2025

Donald Trump will be sworn in as US president this Monday, US time — and Anthony Albanese’s world will be smashed.

Just see how key members of Trump’s team wiped the floor with Democrat senators in their confirmation hearings last week, showing its going to be a new no-nonsense world and Australia must change or decline even faster.

For instance, Trump’s pick as Treasury secretary, hedge fund mogul Scott Bessant, blew up a pet fairytale of the Albanese government after one Democrat insisted the US was in a “clean energy arms race with China”.

Albanese, our prime minister, has made the same claim, last year declaring “right around the world … we are in a race” for “clean, reliable electricity”.

Bessant responded by telling a truth Albanese won’t: “China will build 100 new coal plants this year. There is not a clean energy race. There is an energy race.”

He’s right. Many countries now desperately want any energy that is cheap and reliable. The winners will have stronger economies. Losers like us will just get weaker.

Bessant also smashed another Albanese climate fantasy – that we should ban nuclear power and instead make solar panels to compete with China and become a “renewable energy superpower”.

Bessant cut the cant: “China will build 10 nuclear plants this year. That is not solar.”

Meanwhile, Trump’s pick as energy secretary, gas tycoon Chris Wright, said he’d back Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” agenda and scrap the “green new scam” inhibiting America from producing oil, gas and coal.

“Energy is critical to human lives,” he said. “President Trump shares my passion for energy. And if confirmed, I will work tirelessly to implement his bold agenda as an unabashed steward for all sources of affordable, reliable and secure American energy.”

Is Albanese listening? Are the Liberal MPs who still cling to our net-zero suicide strategy?

Here’s what will happen. Trump will unleash a cheap energy revolution which will cut power costs for American business.

In contrast, we’re even running short of gas and electricity thanks to our global warming lunacy.

So where do you think industries will invest? Here or there? Our soaring electricity cost has already wiped out our nickel industry.

But that wasn’t the only warning last week from Trump and his team.

Trump plainly means to create a revolution from day one. In fact, he’s already scared Israel and Hamas into a peace deal last week with his threat that “all hell will break loose” if they didn’t sign.

That was a brutal reminder of a truth smaller powers like us dismiss as crude: the strong make the rules.

Trump will have no patience with countries which pretend kumbaya will defang China or Iran, and leave America to do the fighting for them.

Like us.

Trump’s nominees are just as ultra-pragmatic.

Senator Marco Rubio, Trump’s pick as Secretary of State, told his own confirmation hearing China was the “most potent and dangerous” nation the US had ever faced.

Confrontation with China is coming. That will put huge pressure on Albanese’s “get along to get along” approach to the most powerful dictatorship the world has ever seen.

And here’s a final example of a Trump nominee giving Australia the big wakey-wakey – not just about how the world works, but how woke is now a national security risk.

Pete Hegseth has been mocked by journalists as a bed-hopping, big-drinking Fox News host who never rose above the rank of major in the National Guard, yet will now be Trump’s Defense Secretary.

Yet Hegseth humiliated the Democrats who literally screeched at him in last week’s hearing, keeping his cool.

Here’s one exchange, albeit with Republican Senator and former Navy SEAL Tim Sheehy, which symbolises the massive cultural shift that Trump’s team represents even for Australia.

SHEEHY: How many genders are there? Tough one.

HEGSETH: Two …

SHEEHY: What is the diameter of the rifle round fired out of an M4A1 rifle?

HEGSETH: 5.56 …

SHEEHY: How many rounds of 5.56 can you fit into the magazine of an M4 rifle?

HEGSETH: Standard issue is 30.

SHEEHY: What size round is the M9 Beretta standard issue sidearm for the military fire?

HEGSETH: A 9mm …

SHEEHY: You understand what the warfighter deals with every single day on the battlefield … you have my support. I know, running the US military takes much more sophisticated knowledge than that, but the basics are also essential. So is not being blinded by bull.

This Monday our world changes.

A few good highlighted points.

Last edited 20 minutes ago by Beertruk
Bungonia Bee
Bungonia Bee
January 20, 2025 6:38 am

The BBC has its own prism for all world events.

  1. The Deal was held up “because Bibi wanted to keep his coalition intact” – ffs, not because it’s such a dud deal?
  2. Trump will be inaugurated and “radically change the USA” – what? The last four years of the Biden Puppetocracy did the radical change. Trump will attempt to do Repairs!!
GreyRanga
GreyRanga
January 20, 2025 6:49 am
Reply to  Bungonia Bee

Listening and watching the news and commentary on the hostage deal was all framed around it being Israel’s fault. Obviously the wonderful muzzies couldn’t do anything wrong. The smug mouthpiece on the GAYALPBC I could’ve slapped into next week.

calli
calli
January 20, 2025 6:45 am

In fact, he’s already scared Israel and Hamas into a peace deal last week with his threat that “all hell will break loose” if they didn’t sign.

Please tell the truth and don’t embellish what Trump actually said.

If the hostages are not released prior to January 20, 2025, the date that I proudly assume Office as President of the United States, there will be ALL HELL TO PAY in the Middle East, and for those in charge who perpetrated these atrocities against Humanity.

I doubt very much that Israel was “scared” into a peace deal.

calli
calli
January 20, 2025 6:55 am

Watching those three girls in the vehicles running the gauntlet with the Gazan crowds tells me all I need to know.

Masked, sinister, armed to the teeth and all men. Twenty deep along the route. All shrieking, screaming hate and brandishing their guns.

Compare and contrast with the police escorted bus ride the released terrorists received.

This is where civilisation and savagery meet.

Beertruk
January 20, 2025 6:57 am

The Paywallion:

Journos fail to grasp basic terror truths

Chris Mitchell
9 hours ago. Updated 7 hours ago

The inauguration of president-elect Donald Trump on Monday and Israel’s military success against Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran indicate parts of the Western world are waking up to the realities of power.

In much of the West the celebration of feelings over facts in everything from gender and the media to international diplomacy has been driven by a 21st century take on Marxist thought.

Rather than focus on material improvement for the working class, this politics is the province of upper middle class professionals who prioritise the imagined right of individuals never to feel offended. Hence men can be women and Islamist terrorists can be progressives even if they subjugate women and murder homosexuals.

The election of Trump has sent the world a message. Voters prize common sense. They are OK with polite tolerance but not when it damages their own societies.

They want Trump to “Make America Great Again’’ because they saw Joe Biden and Barack Obama draw lines in the sand with authoritarian dictators who ignored the most powerful nation in history because they did not fear its leaders.

This is not just about wars in Gaza and Ukraine. Think the red-line ultimatum Obama issued against former president Bashar al-Assad in Syria in August 2012 if he used chemical weapons against his own people. He did so a year later.

In the years after the 2001 al-Qa’ida attacks in New York and Washington and the 2002 Bali bombings, much discussion in newspapers such as this one centred on the nature of tolerance. Should a tolerant society such as Australia’s allow the extreme intolerance of Islamist radicals?

In the self-consciously progressive left media – the old Fairfax papers – the discussion was less clear-eyed.

Was the West betraying its own democratic ideals by, for example, imprisoning Islamists at Guantanamo Bay while they were being questioned without having received a fair trial?

Was the West to blame for Islamist attacks on Western targets because it was more concerned with Middle Eastern oil than Middle Eastern social conditions?

This column called this “the root causes” view in a piece published on October 14, 2023, about the October 7 pogrom in southern Israel. In this view, Western victims of Islamic terror, whether in Israel, the US, Bali or Paris, bring terror on themselves because they do not recognise the problems of the Islamic world.

Never mind much of the Islamic world, particularly the Arab world, is ruled by some of the richest, most repressive leaders on Earth who privately support Islamist terror with oil money. And don’t forget the open anti-Semitism of many of the Arab world’s leaders, journalists and intellectuals who quote the Koran to justify murdering Jews.

Today in parts of Australia’s political left, the “root causes” view has morphed into outright sympathy for Islamism. Uni students praise Osama bin Laden’s manifesto, many support the October 7 slaughter of 1200 innocent Israeli civilians and decry Israel, one of the rare countries in the Middle East where women and gays are safe.

The UN, with 56 Muslim majority country members – and affiliated NGOs such as the World Health Organisation – openly run interference for Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis. The Western left follows.

Palestinian Australian academic Randa Abdel-Fattah has this month repeated several false claims that Israel attacked civilians at the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza and wrongfully imprisoned its director, Dr Hussam Abu Safiya. Some posts about Safiya imply he is a saintly figure, yet he is a Hamas colonel.

Melanie Phillips on Substack on January 1 referred to a then 12-month-old report in The Times of Israel quoting the hospital’s former director, Ahmad Kahlot, admitting Hamas had offices in the hospital. Kahlot said he had been a lieutenant colonel with Hamas since 2010. He said 16 staff members were part of the organisation’s Al-Qassam terror organisation. Phillips quoted a Palestinian news site referring to Dr Safiya as a colonel.

Links between Hamas and UN-supported education, aid and medical facilities in Gaza have been known for years. The UN investigated links between Hamas and UNRWA (the UN Relief and Works Agency) as far back as 2014.

Politicians should not be surprised at the rise in anti-Semitism in the West: the media casually reports Israeli military actions against embedded Hamas forces in hospitals and schools as if Israel is deliberately targeting children and the sick.

Just as bad has been reporting alleging Israel is deliberately starving Gazans. Never mind that in no other conflict would the party first attacked be held responsible for feeding the civilian population of its attacker. This column reported on April 7 last year that Israel’s aid convoys into Gaza had reached pre-war levels, even though much of the media was lazily repeating Hamas and UN propaganda about famine. Hamas creates the aid problem. It and other terror groups are stealing aid and selling it to Gazans at inflated prices.

US National Public Radio on November 20 showed the anti-Semitic mentality of Israel’s critics. It reported only 11 of 109 UN aid trucks had succeeded in deliveries the previous weekend. The rest had been stolen by armed militias.

Rather than call on Hamas to secure aid deliveries, NPR quoted a UN spokesperson demanding Israel do more to prevent attacks on aid convoys.

Just as dehumanising of Israelis have been silly reports criticising conservative Israeli government member Itamar Ben-Gvir for admitting he had last year blocked a hostage deal with Hamas.

Abdel-Fattah and journalist Antoinette Lattouf who have reposted on X criticism of Ben-Gvir must know even the Jerusalem Post has acknowledged the hostage deal agreed last Wednesday presents real dangers to Israel: the release of perhaps a thousand Palestinian convicted terrorists in return for the 94 remaining Israeli civilian hostages, many of whom may already be dead.

It was the 2011 release of 1026 Palestinian prisoners in return for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit that allowed Yahya Sinwar back to Gaza. Now dead, Sinwar had been sentenced to four life terms for the abduction and murder of two Israeli soldiers and the killing of four Palestinians in 1989. Sinwar led the October 7 pogrom.

The Jerusalem Post has conceded Israel risks a repeat with the latest ceasefire, which unarguably rewards hostage taking. Ben-Gvir threatened to quit the government on Thursday because he thinks the latest ceasefire presents grave dangers to Israel.
Journalists often misunderstand the point of terrorism. Islamist attacks in Western countries are designed to show young Muslims the West cares more for white victims than it does for Muslim victims in Islamic countries.

Similarly, October 7 and the sacrificing of innocent Palestinian lives in Gaza are designed to make young Muslims believe the West values Jewish lives more than Palestinian lives.

Back to strength of leadership. No one knows if Trump’s second presidency will be a success.

Yet The Times Of Israel last Thursday reported two Arab sources involved in the Gaza ceasefire talks believe Trump’s negotiator, Steve Witkoff, achieved more in one tense weekend of talks with Netanyahu than Biden did the entire previous year.

  1. Watching those three girls in the vehicles running the gauntlet with the Gazan crowds tells me all I need to…

  2. Listening and watching the news and commentary on the hostage deal was all framed around it being Israel’s fault. Obviously…

  3. Here’s the Sky News report: Three female hostages released in first phase of Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal after brief delay from…

  4. In fact, he’s already scared Israel and Hamas into a peace deal last week with his threat that “all hell…

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